Comic Memoir: I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN by Mannie Murphy

 Comic Memoir: I NEVER PROMISED YOU A ROSE GARDEN by Mannie Murphy. 2021. 978168396410052499.

Starts as a memoir of teen love and fascination with River Phoenix by a woman who grew up in the PNW and Portland. Turns into a story about Phoenix and director Gus van Sant. van Sant's upper middle class fascination with street kids and culture. The connection of street kids to white supremacy groups. The growth and popularity if white supremacist dirtbags. Influence and presence of nazi leader Tom Metzger. The connection to the infamous GERALDO episode of thrown chairs and new-nazi garbage humans. 

A listing of true crime stories recalled or connected to the author and her youth in Portland. Attending a alternative high school with a bad reputation. A well-known neo-nazi garbage human who went to the high school and convicted of murder. van Sant's very sketchy behavior with teen street people. 

Overarching theme of failing children and teens and "don't trust adults". Kids left adrift to early abuse of drugs and sex - River Phoenix the famed example. Uncritical following of leaders like Metzger and the both the Oregon Episcopal School mountain disaster with nine dead. 1978 airliner crash into a Portland suburb killing ten.

Artwork is black and white on a lined notebook. I don't know enough about art to know the type of painting. To me this is a black-and-white water color. The illustrations really do match the darker colors and themes I recall from van Sant's work. Where every day is cloudy and it feels like the sky is pressing everything down.

Very Brief: WAR ON GAZA by Joe Sacco

 Very Brief: WAR ON GAZA by Joe Sacco. 2024. 9798875000904.

32 pages of comics reporting. Well, opinion and commentary than reporting. Sacco has done some excellent reporting in the past. He just uses comics format instead of prose. SAFE AREA GORAZDE was a real eye opener for me on how people lived in a war zone. Sacco has spent a lot of time in Palestinian areas over the past 30 years and observing life and meeting people.

There is:

• plenty of criticism of Joe Biden and Netanyahu. 
• Pointing our victim blaming. 
• Listing liars and their lies. 
• U.S. domestic politics and the U.S. financial and military support. 
• History of peaceful efforts met with deadly violence. 

Online Guy: THE LONG FALL by Lynn Kostoff

 Online Guy: THE LONG FALL  by Lynn Kostoff. 2003, 978078711659.

I run across Kostoff online and had been intending to read his work for a while. This came out 22 years ago. And, dang it, I cannot recall time period it is set in. I'm thinking it was the 1990s. Anyhoo. 

Slack-ass loser and released convict Jimmy is a self-involved fuckup. He went to prison for stealing Saguaro cacti - a felony in AZ - and now has a big gambling debt to a loanshark. Jimmy got fired from his latest job at a Western themed local amusement park. He figures he can turn his recently inherited property into cash. He just needs his much, much, much more successful brother to sign some papers.

Successful brother Richard tells him to pound sand because he is sick of Jimmy's BS and need for bailouts. The brothers argue. Richard pulls a scam on Jimmy because he knows Jimmy won't read the actual documents he is signing. Jimmy and Richard argue. 

Jimmy is under threat by the loanshark's goons. Jimmy makes stupid decisions. Laughter ensues. Bad Guy has evil background and evil intentions. Jimmy's sister-in-law hates her work and obligations. Jimmy and sister-in-law start sexual affair.

I enjoyed the book. A cover blurb compares to Cark Hiassen. I've not read Hiassen in a long time so I cannot vouch for that. This does fit that humorous noir category of bad guy making bad decisions with little to no way out. Except the category of 'humorous noir' also means it's not really noir because a happy or bittersweet ending is usually included.

Comments:

• Lots of Phoenix and Phoenix area details.
• Gun talk with Bad Guy have an odd assemblage of weapons. One of which is a P239. I used to really want a P239 years ago.
• Ripping on Rotary and stuffed shirt members.
• Hey, man. Rotary does a crap ton of community work. My club is not filled with self-serving a-holes.
• Sister-in-law married Rich Brother and had to join the family business. She wants to go back to the art world and run a gallery. Managing dry cleaning stores is NOT her thing.

Online Rec: OTHER SANDBOXES by F. Paul Wilson

 Online Rec: OTHER SANDBOXES  by F. Paul Wilson. 2020. 9781637890776.

Short story collection with Wilson writing stories using other authors' universes and characters. With five stories riffing off Sax Rohmer. 

Each story has a nice preface by Wilson explaining how he chose or was requested to write a story. I enjoyed the Fu Manchu ones. I never read one of the Rohmer novels.

I'd say this is more a enthusiast's book. Either for Wilson fans or old mystery fans. Except, he also plays in the worlds of Heather Graham, Blake Crouch, and Ann Voss Peterson.

Re-Pubbed: SECRET DEAD MEN by Duane Swierczynski

 Re-Pubbed: SECRET DEAD MEN by Duane Swierczynski. 2024. 9781835410486.

I've read enough Swierczynski books that I can now type his name without checking correct spelling. That doesn't mean my fumble fingers won't mis-type his name.

This came out in 2004 and the 2024 issue has a very nice cover design.

What was this about? I'm sorta trying to remember. It has the part-gonzo, part-horror, and part-fantasy approach Swierczynski does so well. Basically, a spirit is stuck in a human body and looking for another spirit that enjoys killing people. 

Protagonist spirit inhabits another body and brings along the spirits of all the people whose bodies he has taken over. In the novel some of those spirits assist Protagonist to find Antagonish.

I don't know. The book was fine. I recall it having some weak spots but I cannot recall what I thought those were. If you like Swierczynski it's worth a go.

Comments:

• Lately I've been confusing Swierczynki's work with Charlie Huston's. The share similar taste, attitude, character personalities. Mixing in some gonzo humor with dark tragedy.
• Does my idea of gonzo match your idea of gonzo? Hell if I know.

From 2002: THE CONTORTIONIST'S HANDBOOK by Craig Clevenger

 THE CONTORTIONIST'S HANDBOOK by Craig Clevenger, 2002, 193156115X.

Like most books I forgot why I put this on hold. Crime novel set in mid-'80s with a drug addicted forger. Mostly about him growing up and learning his trade. A bit of a high IQ autist with art skills he is mainly self taught and VERY detailed oriented.

He regularly builds up identities with details and either backable data or "County Courthouse burned down, must be a real birth certificate." Current day story - 1980 something - is set in a L.A. County mental health facility after narrator ODs and is under observation to judge whether he is suicidal. Narrator tells  his tale and the tale is compellingly told and fun to read. Plenty of detail added about forging and growing up with absent parents and teenage legal trouble. 

But, narrator is trying to avoid bad guys and I never quite believed the threat of the bad guys. Only a smal portion of the plot includes Bad Guys and they are assumed to be mob guys with a lot of money, power, and reach. 

I enjoyed the read but it's not a crime or mystery novel as much as a character study. ANd Clevenger does put together a neat character.

Western Paperback: DEADMAN'S TRAIL by Nate Morgan.

 Western Paperback, DEAD MAN'S TRAIL by Nate Morgan (Victor Gischler), 2022, 9780786049417.

Gischler won a Spur Award for this novel of the follow-up. I do not recall which.

Carson Stone and Colby Tate are travelling bounty hunters who end up in Idaho. After tracking, finding, and gunfighting their quarry they bring the corpses into town to claim the bounty. Carson and Colby have been hanging around the Boise area. Carson is in a relationship of sorts with a prostitute. Both are asked to by the Sheriff to look into a mysterious death outside of town. The death is one of a string of events the lawman is looking into.

Things happen. They is a long con being run against local Rich Guy to trick him into buying land for a nonexistent rail line. When land owners don't want to sell, Rich Guy forces a sale or kills the owners. 

Local U.S. Cavalry unit is hunting renegade natives. A local miscreant acts as a informant. Carson goes ga-ga for local farm woman. Carson has the sexy-sex with his sorta girlfriend. Horses are ridden. Bad guys are shot. Carson and Colby run against Murderous Bad Lady who they've previously dealt with.

Gischler gives plenty of plot and adds in all the Western elements. The main plot of the Rich Guy making land grabs also has Army v. Indians, small town farming, dying mining towns looking to survive, a crooked cop, romantic triangle indecision, small town politics, conmen being super weasels. 

This one was not quite my speed. To be fair, I was also reading this during a busy summer and visits to a dying relative. 

Other book in the series is SHORT ROPE FOR A TALL MAN which is also available from the library. SHORT ROPE's two copies have 19 circs since October of last year. That is pretty decent.

Four copies of DEAD have 35 circs since April, 2023.

Gischler's RUMOR OF KINGS has two circs since July, 2022. Well... some fantasy fic just doesn't circ here.